Coworking Spaces and Nomad Workers in Japan · Global Voices
Tomomi Sasaki

Coworking is a growing worldwide movement, and Japan is no exception. Although known for its culture of long working hours and office-bound work style — traditions ingrained into the psyche of the salaried worker — the shift to coworking is not perhaps as surprising as it may seem.
The phase “nomad worker” hit mainstream consciousness with the publication of  “You don’t need an office to work – The Nomad Workstyle” (仕事するのにオフィスはいらない – ノマドワーキングのすすめ) by popular writer Toshinao Sasaki in July, 2009. The conversation was taken to the next level by the earthquake on March 11th and the events that followed. With Tokyo facing several weeks of severely disrupted work and months of reduced electricity usage, the conversation around alternative methods of working naturally accelerated, from daylight savings time to a renewed interest in freelancing. Coworking was among these.
Journalist/consultant Ken Kato defines it this way:
コワーキング（Coworking）とは一言でいえば、アイディアや情報・ファシリティ・スキルなどをシェアすることにより、オフィス環境を共有する相乗効果を生み出そうとする新しい働き方です。既存のレンタルオフィスのような時間貸しのスペースとは異なり、会議室やイベントスペース等を兼ね備えたオープンな空間になっているのも特徴で、単なる空間ではなく、コミュニティ･スペースであると言えるでしょう。
Here is a shortlist map of coworking spaces in Japan. The green pins stand for spaces that allow both membership and drop ins, light blue is for shared offices (membership only), yellow is for cafe spaces (drop in only), pink is for corporate spaces (drop in only), and blue is for those that are not categorized.
New coworking spaces are popping up like crazy, mostly in Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe. One such example is “The Terminal” in Harajuku, Tokyo. Blogger Ayako documents her visit on its opening day this past August with a photo report.
Terminal, photo by Ayako on the Tokyo Nomad Work blog
Tomohiko Yoneda tweeted his impression:
今日オープニングレセプションがあった原宿のコワーキングスペース「ターミナル」は物凄い人で注目の高まりを伺えた。本当にノマドやワークスペースに大きな関心が寄せられていることを日に日に感じる。場所に縛られず仕事をしたり、人と交流する事に人々がどんどん意識的になっている時代。
Tony Bacigalupo, the co-founder of New Work, visited no less than four coworking spaces in Tokyo on a recent trip. He comments about Paxi House, which is partly a restaurant specializing in coriander.
Seeing Paxi House combine restaurant and coworking space was an eye opening experience. To succeed and compete with their franchise chain counterparts, small cafes and restaurants must develop a strong following and a healthy community around their spaces. […] Coworking space owners would do well to pay close attention to how these existing business owners find success, not to mention how they cope with their small scale. Paxi House takes this analogy to the extreme by actually being both a small restaurant and coworking space. I would love to see more places like this popping up and succeeding.
Startup incubator Samurai Incubate just announced that it will open a coworking space for its startups, making it one of the country’s largest facilities of its kind. In an article covering their announcement, tech writer Masaru Ikeda provides a map of other startup-related facilities, saying:
In Tokyo, we now have quite a few incubator-supporting co-working spaces and incubation offices here in Tokyo.
Real estate developer Mori Building has also been in the game for a while, with a membership program for a shared library and coworking space in the skyscrapers of Roppongi Hills. Again, Tony Bacigalupo:
They are the boldest attempt I’ve seen at merging library with coworking. And the location we visited is perched on the 49th floor of a big office tower. And they’re huge.
Existing cafes and restaurants have also started to cater to this segment. @elm200 tweets about a branch of the 45+y.o. mega-chain Renoir Cafe, which offers free wifi and power chargers to customers.
うーむ渋谷桜丘のルノアールの癖に客が多い…つかルノアールって数年前よりずっと流行っている気がするのよね。内装もきれいにしたし、ノマドワーカーを始め、PC を使うビジネス客をうまくつかまえている気がするね。
Because of the nature of the open communication, there is a lot of information online about it. The Facebook group sees active exchange of information about different spaces and events. People are constantly sharing their discoveries on nomad working, as can be seen by @TakuyaKawai‘s tweet:
マクドナルド六本木ヒルズ店1階はノマドワーカーの超穴場。ﾎﾞｿｯ
The affinity with the Internet doesn't end with sharing information. On the Japanese crowdfunding platform Campfire, co-ba recently raised funds to start their space, while Jelly Jelly Cafe procured decent chairs with a project [ja] called “Save Our Ass”.
p_co-ba2 from campfirejp on Vimeo.
The relaunch of the mutli-social media client Crowy was a direct fruit of connections and collaborations:
Today's big refresh happened because of a fortunate encounter this August. Another developer, Yuya Yoshida met designer Yutaka Fujiki at Open Source Cafe Shimokitazawa and became connected. They started collaborating on Crowy together from August, also involving other coworking place participants as beta testers and source of feedback.
Kenji904 recently set up shop in  PAX Coworking, the space adjunct to Paxi House. While coworking spaces are normally associated with freelancers, he opened a Tokyo sales office for his Aichi Prefecture based company that offers printing services for cloth material.
He explains his reasons –
・情報の最先端は東京にあるし、規模が大きい
・ITやWEBの知識がこれからは必ず必須になる
・競合から奪うのではなく、新規事業や新規業界を創る事が大切
・デザイナーやWEB業界などとコラボレーションは重要
– and his take on the idea:
何気なく自分の求めているゆるい人との繋がりを産み出してくれるのがコワーキングスペースなのかなと思っています。リアル版のゆるい繋がりをうむSNS的なイメージです。
そこにはその場所のマスター的なカタリスト（触媒）の人がいて、最初はいろいろ場所を形成してくれています。なので、初めて参加しても、何となくみんなが受け入れてくれるような場所の雰囲気が出来上がっています。
そして何回か行くうちにそこにいる人みんながそれぞれ触媒になっていく感じを最近感じています。